


Broken

by persnickett



Category: Live Free or Die Hard (2007)
Genre: Community: smallfandomfest, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-23
Updated: 2014-12-23
Packaged: 2018-03-03 02:59:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2835548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/persnickett/pseuds/persnickett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Hey kid.” It’s no surprise to hear McClane’s voice grit out over the speaker. He’s the only person Matt talks to who still uses his phone as an actual phone. “How fast can you get here?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broken

 

 

“Did you try turning it off and back on again?” Matt asks, after jabbing a finger at what he’s reasonably sure is the button for speakerphone without taking his eyes off the screen. Godzilla is almost at the Golden Gate Bridge.   
  
“Hey kid.” It’s no surprise to hear McClane’s voice grit out over the speaker. He’s the only person Matt talks to who still uses his phone as an actual phone. “How fast can you get here?”  
  
“Uhhhh…Thirty minutes?”  
  
The real answer is closer to forty-five, and Matt’s not really sure why he even bothers. McClane’s going to know he’s lying anyway. But even as distracted as he is, Matt has this vague sense that maybe McClane wouldn’t be entirely comfortable knowing just how far it is, how quick Matt’s been ‘til now to just drop everything and rush his lame ass over there each and every time the man calls.   
  
Maybe Matt’s not entirely comfortable with it either.   
  
“Okay,” McClane says, and judging by the rustle and fumble sound of McClane disconnecting the call, followed by abrupt silence, that’s going to be the entirety of the conversation.   
  
The school-bus full of anxious-faced kids rocks on its wheels and the row of tanks fire off their missiles, but Godzilla just reaches down and snaps off the gun barrels with surprisingly delicate accuracy.   
  
He could ignore the call, argue that technically McClane hadn’t asked him to go anywhere. Pretend that it’s completely feasible he could have been just asking for information. For research purposes. Conducting an informal survey on traffic and travel times in the Tri-State area or something. He was a detective after all…  
  
But he goes. He goes because he’s conditioned or something. Because with what precious little he heard, Matt’s brain is already busily convincing itself that whatever ‘foolproof’ gadget McClane has mysteriously managed to put into a tech tangle of epic magnitude is important. More important than finishing the Godzilla marathon that’s been on his to-view list forever, or the three-hour coding stint he promised himself he’d put in on the Initech job later tonight. He can practically hear his brain tripping over itself to insist that something in that voice sounded distressed, almost urgent.   
  
He goes because that voice is in his head at nights, telling him to ‘get down’ to ‘stay close’, barking orders that got him through the impossible and ultimately saved his very life, time and time again.   
  
He tells himself it has nothing to do with the other nights – the ones a little fewer and further between, when that voice whispers other things in his dreams. Things like ‘touch me here’, and ‘put your mouth right there’. Because those are things Matt will never, ever, as long as there are stars in the cosmos and The Simpsons is still on the tube, hear said in that voice while he’s awake.   
  
And that’s cool. Matt’s good with it. Really.   
  
Godzilla lets out an almighty bellow of rage, and makes a beeline for the fleet of battleships. Matt sighs, shrugs into a jacket and shuts down the screen.  
  


*****

  
  
The apartment is dark when he gets there. Matt knocks first of course, but there’s no answer, so he tries the door. It’s open. It’s dark. It’s quiet.   
  
The lights are off and so is the TV. There are no sounds of cursing all computers to an eternity in hell, or of McClane’s ancient desktop inexplicably spinning that Cats Playing Patty-Cake video on an inescapable loop.   
  
“In here,” McClane calls out, before Matt’s imagination can go all the way into hyperdrive about Gabriel-style apartment ambushes and Gruber revenge plots.   
  
The voice – and the only light in the place – is coming from the bathroom in the hall. Matt rounds the corner, and whatever quip he was going to make dies on his lips when he’s met with the distinctive scent of brown liquor and puke.   
  
The rest is blood. All blood. Just McClane collapsed in a heap in the corner where the wall meets the tub, and covered liberally in blood. Most of it seems to be coming from somewhere on the top of his head.  
  
“McClane!” Matt feels the tiles come up against his knees a little too hard as he comes down. He’s crumpling, sliding, reaching out, when McClane’s hands come up in a ‘back off’ gesture and Matt throws his own hands into the air as abruptly as if McClane were holding up the foundations and the building might come down on top of them if they touched.   
  
“Hey kid,” McClane says, smiling a little sloppily. But he’s not looking at Matt, he’s looking at his own outstretched hands and their daubing of half-dried blood.   
  
“…Hey,” Matt says.   
  
McClane turns his left hand around so Matt can see it, and it is so many kinds of Not Right. The pinky is bent at an implausible angle and even under a thick padding of dark-looking swelling, two of the knuckles look like they are in the wrong place.   
  
“I think it’s broken,” McClane slurs boozily. Then he collapses back against the tub in a fit of uproarious laughter.   
  


*****

  
  
The nurse that comes to tell him he’s allowed to see McClane now seems stressed, and maybe a little mean. Matt’s not sure he blames her, really. All the fantasies he may or may not have had about playing doctor with McClane aside, the reality of setting the bones of an inebriated Brooklyn cop with a history of aggression probably isn’t at the top of most people’s lists for a Friday night.   
  
They’ve put McClane on a ward, behind a little curtain. He looks up when Matt steps in around the edge, looking decidedly more sober than the last time Matt laid eyes on him. Most of the blood is gone, there’s a cast on his hand and a bandage on the top of his head looking like it might be covering new stitches. They have him in a chair instead of a bed which is encouraging but there’s an IV in his arm none the less, and he’s wearing a hospital gown.   
  
Matt looks away, tries to cover it by looking around for a chair. There don’t seem to be any more, but there’s a little stool with wheels on it under the gurney so Matt pulls it out and sits on that instead.  
  
He still kind of doesn’t feel like looking at McClane for some reason, but that’s weird, so he does. McClane nods at him.  
  
“Thanks for the drive, kid,” he says, quietly. “…I didn’t want to call Lucy.”  
  
Then McClane gives him this wry, sort of sheepish half-smile and it’s not weird anymore. Or maybe it’s still weird, but suddenly weird doesn’t seem to matter all that much. Matt moves his stool a little closer.  
  
“So…what happened?”  
  
“Ah y’know,” McClane answers, sounding weary. “Got into a bottle of Jameson, thought it would be a good time to try and fix the sink. Or maybe I punched the sink, I dunno—” McClane lifts his cast, to try and wave it in a nonchalant motion, and then winces and settles it gently back in his lap.   
  
“No,” Matt says, “I mean…” And this is definitely weird, but it’s also really important. Matt wants to look away again – and for a second he does – but when he looks back up he waits for McClane to meet his gaze square-on before he goes ahead. “There’s never any beer in your fridge. You call me to meet up for drinks and then you order a soda…”  
  
McClane blinks. He looks away himself, down at the floor. But he’s nodding, and Matt thinks maybe he won’t rip the IV out of his arm and jump up and murder him right in the middle of the ward if he keeps talking.  
  
“There’s a red chip in the bowl by the door where you keep your keys,” he says. “My uncle had a purple one just like that once. That’s what, four months sober?”  
  
“Eight.”  
  
Matt nearly says something reflexive and idiotic like ‘congratulations’ but he catches himself in time. He nods instead.   
  
“So what happened?”  
  
“One of our guys bought it on the job today,” McClane says in this strange, flat tone. Matt gets a horrible feeling like a stone dropping in his stomach, but mercifully McClane keeps going before he has to think of anything to say. “Young guy, under forty. Did everything right, you know, didn’t smoke, never touched a drink. Had a pretty wife and couple of kids…and did right by ‘em every day of his life.” McClane lifts a hand as if he’s about to rub it over his head, but he remembers this time and puts it back down again. “Ate right and hit the gym four times a week, even. And now those kids get to grow up without a dad in spite of everything. …Guess I got to thinking whether any of it really matters at all, I guess.”   
  
McClane shakes his head and smiles to himself, albeit a little sadly, and the weight of the stone in Matt’s insides eases up just a little. Matt takes a breath.  
  
“Whoa,” he acknowledges. “Heavy.”  
  
McClane’s eyebrows lift and he actually chuckles a tiny little bit, and Matt feels like maybe he’s allowed to keep asking questions. So he scoots his stool a little closer again, tells McClane he’s sorry to hear about his friend, which is totally true anyway, and then he goes for it.   
  
“Isn’t there somebody you can call? I mean there’s supposed to be someone for days like that, right? A…sponsor or something.”  
  
McClane looks right at him for the first time in a while now, and gives a gingerly shrug. “I usually just break my computer or my cell phone.”   
  
The stone in Matt’s stomach evaporates into a puff of stomach-stone antimatter and winks itself out of existence. “Oh,” he says.  
  
“Too ‘heavy’?” McClane asks. He’s still not looking away.  
  
“No,” Matt answers truthfully, not really sure why he’s suddenly blushing, and wishing he could stop. “No, I. Look,” he says, but he  _can’t_  look, so he keeps his gaze pointed where it seems to have fallen. Which is on McClane’s cast. “I’m…I’m honoured.”  
  
Matt can hear McClane snort skeptically in response, but he still can’t look, and he still can’t stop blushing. So he reaches out and lays his hand over the plaster wrapping covering McClane’s knuckles instead.  
  
“So is that what happened the day you called me over because your browser was mysteriously frozen on the wiki for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic?”   
  
Matt finally gets the guts to pull back and look up at McClane. He tries for a cheesy grin, and probably just ends up with a spazzy-looking grimace, but it seems to work.  
  
“Rape case,” McClane confirms gruffly. “Long brown hair, a little like Lucy’s.” His tone softens a little, and he goes on. “Beat up pretty bad. On an IV and all.” McClane lifts his own intubated arm to demonstrate. “Had to go to the hospital to do the interview.”  
  
Matt is visited by a forceful and unwelcome Law and Order SVU-style image of Lucy in a hospital bed. Pale and battered, with a puffy black eye and a long, harsh split in her lip. It feels like the antimatter in his stomach may have left a nasty hole in his innards.   
  
It doesn’t take long for his brain to chase all that away though, not with the way his mind seems to be churning. He’s flipping things now, events, snatches of conversation, over and over in his mind. Chasing the elusive memory of that first call, the first time McClane had phoned him pleading some technical crisis.  
  
“First time I called you, it was this kid,” McClane says, as if he could hear Matt’s mental gears grinding on the thought from the seat next to him. “Car accident, hit and run. We never did catch the asshole. Total freak thing probably – driver smacked into the kid in the middle of the night and then just panicked.” McClane reaches up, gently this time, and rubs the tips of his fingers over the creases in his forehead. “He was on his way home from some kind of nerdy convention thing. He had this computer bag over his shoulder, chock full of comic books, and he… he had that same wallet you like to carry around,” McClane finishes, and clears his throat. “With the slogan on it. Y’know ‘with great power…’”  
  
“Comes great electricity bill,” Matt agrees, nodding. “Wise words.”  
  
“I don’t get it,” McClane points out.  
  
“You will,” Matt replies, coming to a decision. “I’m making an executive call on your next tech visit. I’m setting you up with Netflix,” he declares, sitting up straight on his little wheelie stool to increase his appearance of authority. “You are hereby banned from taking out the pressures of New York City crime-fighting on innocent technological works and miscellaneous gadgetry. The next time you need some chill time, you call me – because you’re never going to be able to work it by yourself anyway – and we’ll enjoy a relaxing, substance-free movie night together. …With the possible exception of caffeine,” Matt adds as a disclaimer.  
  
McClane’s face is doing that crinkly thing it does whenever Matt has him pretty much convinced about something already, but he’s not ready to stop arguing yet. God that crinkly thing turns Matt’s crank, but  _hard_. He looks back down at McClane’s cast before he can start blushing again.  
  
“How much is this…Netjob going to cost me?”  
  
“For you?” Matt says. “Nothing. I’ll give you my password. – I’ll save it, you won’t even have to type it in!” Matt asserts, before McClane can get all crinkly and argue-y on him again. “…Then maybe I’ll finally get to finish watching Godzilla in peace.”   
  
“Godzilla?” McClane complains. “I don’t even get to pick the movie?”  
  
“Nope.” Matt straightens himself up on his little perch again. “And it’s the remake. Deal.”  
  
McClane stops crinkling at him, thank the Maker, and all-the-way smiles at him, instead.  
  
Matt feels like they’re supposed to shake on this or something, but McClane can’t, really, so Matt just reaches out and lays his hand over the plaster of his cast again. He pats a couple of times, gently. Then before he can pull away, McClane takes the other hand and settles it warmly on top of Matt’s.   
  
“Alright,” he agrees. “It’s a date.”  
  
“Good,” Matt says. And he should stop there. Just not say another word. He made the offer to help McClane, not himself. But the thing is – the thing is, Matt really really sucks at not talking. Even when talking might be bad. And McClane’s hand is still there, still sitting there, warm and rough right on top of his hand and “…I was kind of hoping it would be,” he says.   
  
He is a class-A jackass. He can feel McClane’s fingers go stiff. Matt bites his lip, waits for the warmth of the big rough palm to draw away, but McClane isn’t moving.  
  
“Yeah?” he says, instead. Matt looks up into McClane’s eyes and there’s no revulsion there, no look of pity or regret that usually comes before the grand old rejection speech. Just that crinkly thing.   
  
This is his chance. He can take it back, make some chest-beating hetero crack about it being the best offer his surly old ass is going to be lucky enough to get.  
  
But Matt is a weak, weak man, and that crinkle should probably be a controlled substance.   
  
“Yeah.” He smiles.  
  
McClane stops crinkling at him – more’s the pity – and all-the-way smiles at him instead.  
  
“Okay,” McClane says. And judging by the way that big, warm palm relaxes on top of his hand, and how the fingers unstiffen and curl themselves tightly around Matt’s own, that’s going to be the entirety of the conversation.  
  
And that’s cool. Matt’s good with it.   
  
Really. 


End file.
